Yours and Mine
by bittersweetbetweenmyteeth
Summary: Robin wondered if they would ever learn to talk to each other without fighting. (three scenes set pre-S1)
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** This is sort of an outtake from my longer fic - this started out as a flashback but got unwieldy so now it's here! The first line is just from that, which is why it's sort of an abrupt beginning.

This is juuuuust fluff. There is zero substance here. Only fluff, and arguing, and kissing.

* * *

Robin remembers the first time he kissed her, years ago. After a fair in Nottingham he cornered her outside the castle's stables. She was fifteen and suddenly beautiful, he was seventeen and dreamed about her every night, and all day he watched other boys follow her around, begging for her favor in one contest or another. Merchants' sons and nobles alike, she waved them off with a laugh and returned to Robin's side every time, snickering at her suitors.

"I think I won't marry at all," she said airily. "If these are the kinds of fools I'll have to put up with."

He raised an eyebrow and didn't say anything, but the words hummed in his head the rest of the day, whispering at him through pig roasts and party games. Didn't she know? He hadn't really thought about it before, but he'd just assumed that Marian would marry _him_. He'd _always_ assumed that.

It occurred to him suddenly that he probably needed to tell her.

_Ask_ her.

So as he walked her home that night he pulled her aside, into a recessed wall near the stables. The moonlight played on her face so she was half in shadow, and half lit up like something otherworldly. But he was close enough to feel the heat of her body in the cool night air, and he knew that she was flesh and blood, a mortal creature.

Someone he could deserve.

"What you said earlier about not getting married," he said lightly, "you didn't mean it."

Marian barely glanced at him. "Of course I meant it. Men are insufferable."

Robin laughed. "Not all of us, surely."

She thought about it for a moment. "I suppose not. You're tolerable. Much is - somewhat tolerable. My father is perfect, of course." She rolled her eyes. "But it's not like I can marry any of you."

Robin blinked. This was not what he was expecting. "All right," he said slowly.

"Obviously not my father. Obviously not Much." She laughed a little at that, but her eyes were keen as they settled on him. "And it can't be you, can it?"

His mouth was dry. "Why not?"

"Surely you're not going to marry, either."

Robin was almost sure he knew what she was going to say next, but he asked anyway. He was a glutton for punishment, at least when the punishment came from her. "What makes you say that?"

"Please," Marian said, stepping back from him. He felt the chill immediately. "I know about Bessie and Mattie. And Cecily, in Clun. Word gets around in the villages, you know. And Lady Margaret, when her father was visiting mine." Her voice turned icy. "That one I figured out myself."

Robin winced with every name she listed. All of it was true, of course, and he couldn't deny it. He tried a different tack. "That doesn't mean I'm not going to marry."

The set of her chin made it clear that she was entirely unimpressed with him. "Well, who would have you?"

He looked at her, incredulous. Surely she would not reject him for a few - _dalliances_ with other girls - they were not _betrothed_, he'd made no promises to her. They were friends, that was all, and if Robin had hoped they'd become something more - well, that was _later_, wasn't it, and this was now.

Now. She was clearly expecting an answer.

Robin scratched the back of his neck, a habitual gesture that seemed to infuriate her. Her face reddened, and she opened her mouth in a way that suggested Robin was about to get yelled at, so he cut her off.

"_You_, all right?" It burst out of him before he knew what he was saying. If anything, her face got even redder. He tried to soften his voice. "I thought - I always thought I would marry _you_."

And she didn't say _anything_. She opened her mouth and made a noise that might have been shock or anger or a hundred other emotions that weren't happiness.

After a minute Robin couldn't look at her anymore. He turned away and stalked off, and he made it halfway across the courtyard before she finally spoke.

"You could do a better job of showing it," she called to him. He turned instantly at the sound of her voice.

She was smiling.

Oh, she was trying to hide it - it was coy and shy and her face was mostly in shadow, but she was definitely smiling.

"I'll have to try harder," he called back.

Both of them took a few steps toward each other. Tentative.

"Why all of those other girls, then?" she asked, and he realized that she was hurt. She wasn't angry - well, maybe she was angry - but mostly, she was _jealous_.

Robin sighed. "You're young." And her father would have him arrested if he touched her.

Marian crossed her arms. "And that gives you an excuse to go around - _tumbling_ other girls?"

His temper flared. "Well, I can't exactly 'tumble' you, can I?"

"Then I suppose you'll have to learn to keep your hands to yourself!" She was nearly shouting by then, and Robin wondered if they would ever learn to talk to each other without fighting. He was never good at this part. They fought, and she ran off or he did, to nurse their wounds, and later they'd apologize, but it just took so long to get there, and Robin didn't want to walk away from her.

So he kissed her.

He stepped across the space between them, took her face in his hands, and kissed her.

It was a delicate thing. He'd strode over so forcefully, but by the time he finally leaned in to kiss her, he stopped just a breath away from her lips. He could feel her breath warm on his face.

And he waited for her to close the distance between them.

And she did.

Her lips were light and soft on his, and he had to resist the urge to pull her tight against him. Instead he kept one hand on her cheek, and let the other move to tangle in her hair. He didn't deepen the kiss, and when she pulled away - after a long, long moment - he didn't move in to kiss her again.

"Marian," he said, when he finally remembered how to speak again. "I want to marry _you_."

He heard her breath catch before she opened her eyes. "Is that a proposal?" she asked, teasing, but she must have forgotten that he could see the way she looked when she said it.

Marian wanted to marry him.

Robin grinned. He thought he might never stop grinning. "Not yet," he said, but it sounded like a promise.

He tilted his head and leaned in to kiss her again, but this time she pulled away, pressing a finger to his lips.

Marian looked absolutely delighted as she echoed, "Not yet." As soon as she was sure he wasn't going to try to kiss her again, she put her hands on his shoulders, linking her thumbs behind his neck. She looked _so pleased_ with herself.

He groaned.

"We're not engaged," she reminded him. "So I'm afraid you'll have to wait until we are." Her eyes narrowed. "And that includes other girls. You can't kiss them, either."

"Yes," Robin said. He'd have agreed to anything just then. His head was still full of her, and she was still close enough that her scent filled the air around him. He would agree to anything just to stay there for one more minute, holding her.

"Good." Marian smiled and leaned into him, dropping her hands to wrap around his waist. She rested her head against his chest and he ran his hands up and down her back, and loved how _warm_ she felt in his arms. She fit there like she was made for him. "Robin?" she said.

"Mm."

Her voice was muffled by his shirt, but Robin heard every word. "I want to marry you, too."


	2. Chapter 2

For her seventeenth birthday, Robin gave Marian a hairpin dagger and a bridle to replace the one she'd broken a few days before.

"Practical," she remarked, admiring the hairpin. He'd gotten it in London months earlier. As soon as he'd seen it he thought of her: it was the perfect combination of beautiful and deadly. The jeweled handle sparkled and the point of the dagger was sharp enough to draw blood without applying any pressure. Robin had learned this the hard way.

"I thought you might like something useful," he said.

She laughed. "You must think my life is far more exciting than it really is."

"You never know." Really, he just wanted an excuse to practice with her. She was nearly as good an archer as he was, but every time they went out in the woods to practice with staves or knives or swords, they eventually ended up shooting together. Robin standing behind her, their bodies touching, one hand at her waist and the other guiding her hand on the bow. She didn't need his help and they both knew it, but she never objected.

"Indeed." She unwrapped the bridle next. This Robin had purchased from the tanner in Nottingham, an old man who did the finest work for miles around. And the quickest - Robin had considered it a stroke of luck when Marian's old bridle tore; he'd spent weeks trying to think of what else to get her.

Her hands ran over the soft leather. "This is lovely," she said, and smiled up at him. "Thank you."

"I had it fitted to your palfrey," Robin said. "It shouldn't need any adjustments."

That impressed her. He'd thought it would. "How did you manage that?"

"While you were away at your cousin's," he said. "I just…borrowed her for a few hours."

"Sneaky." She stood up on her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Really, thank you."

"You're welcome." Feeling bold, he kissed her on the cheek, too - dangerously close to her lips, but she didn't smack him so he figured he'd gotten away with it. "Happy birthday."

He moved toward the window, ready to climb out, but the look on Marian's face stopped him. "What?" he asked.

"It's the middle of the day. Why don't you go out the front door, like a normal person?"

"Ah." Robin made a valiant effort to conceal the heat in his cheeks, but from the way she was grinning, he knew he'd failed. "Well. I'll see you later, then."

Marian laughed and watched him go, and when he looked up to her window a few minutes later, she was still watching. He blew her a kiss, and she didn't even roll her eyes.

.

That night he came to her window. She was sitting on her bed in her nightdress, humming to herself, brushing her hair. Robin longed to run his fingers through it, and suddenly it was all he could think of. Her hair, dark against her pale skin. A cloud behind her head as she lay—_No. Focus_, he told himself.

"Psst," Robin hissed, and Marian turned sharply.

Her shoulders relaxed when she saw him. "Oh, it's you."

"Who were you expecting?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "It's the middle of the night, Robin. I wasn't expecting anyone."

She had a point. Robin swung his legs around so he was sitting on her windowsill. "May I come in?"

Marian nodded and he hopped up onto his feet. "Well?" she asked.

"I forgot one of your gifts," said Robin.

"Mmm. Something else practical?" she teased.

Robin considered. Certainly it would serve a purpose. But practical? "Maybe not."

"All right," she said, her interest piqued.

And he knelt before her.

Her eyes went wide. "Robin, what—"

"Marian, will you marry me?" He said it on one too-thin breath and the words came out a jumble, _Marianwillyoumarryme. _Her brow furrowed, then eased once she figured out what he'd said.

"Try it again," she said, a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. "Breathe this time."

He held out a ring - his mother's ring - and after a moment, she held out her left hand to him. He slid the band over her slender finger, catching just a little at the knuckle.

He breathed.

"I love you," he said, and she bit her lip. "I've loved you my whole life, and I'll love you the whole rest of it. I'll always be there for you. You are my best friend." He bent his head to kiss the ring on her finger, and when he pulled away she cupped his face in her hands. Robin looked up at her. "Marry me, Marian."

Her smile lit up the room. "Yes," she said, twining her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck. "_Yes_."

Laughing, Robin pulled her into his arms and spun her around, her toes resting lightly on the tops of his feet. He buried his face in her hair. _Yes_. Her arms were just as tight around him and just as unwilling to pull away - _Marian wants to marry me, we're going to be married_ \- but after a moment, they did.

Marian looked flushed and breathless and beautiful and _happy. _"What did my father say?" she asked, still standing in the circle of his arms. If Robin had his way, she'd never leave.

"He gave us his blessing," Robin said quickly - too quickly - and she gave him a skeptical look. And he amended, "He said that he acquiesced."

She snorted. "Is that really the word he used?"

Robin winced. "Yes. He said that we wouldn't leave him alone until he _acquiesced_, so he might as well do it now."

He left out the part where Edward had reminded Robin of how "headstrong" Marian was, and wondered aloud what kind of wife she'd be. But Robin had never wanted anyone easy. He'd never wanted anyone else.

Just Marian, Marian, Marian. Robin wanted to spend the rest of his life fighting with her. And, he thought, that heat rising again, not _just_ fighting.

"He likes you," Marian assured him, bringing him back to earth. "Sometimes I think he just wants me to live at home with him forever."

"When we're married you can see him every day if you want," Robin said. "You won't be going very far."

"That's probably why he _acquiesced_." She giggled again - not a sound that came from Marian very often. She was enjoying this far too much.

"Probably." They were still standing so close together, and when he reached one hand up to trace her jawline, she didn't pull away. He whispered, "Now can I kiss you?"

Marian nodded, her expression solemn. "Please do."

And he did.


	3. Chapter 3

Robin had just strung his arrow, pointing at a target Marian had nailed to a tree some fifty yards away, when he heard her voice behind him.

"Is it true?"

He didn't say anything. He pulled back and loosed the arrow, watching it miss the target completely. It landed on the ground somewhere, soundlessly.

"Not a very good shot," Marian said, an edge to her voice. "That's how men get killed in the Holy Land."

Robin swallowed and turned to her. Her arms crossed over her chest, looking past him to wherever his arrow had landed. Any softness he was accustomed to seeing in her eyes was absent, and she seemed to have aged five years in the day since he'd last seen her. "I don't have a choice," he said.

"Everything is a choice," she said sharply. "Send someone else in your stead."

He balked at that. "Send someone else to fight and die in my place? Ask them to leave their family behind?"

Marian glared at him, her anger cutting through the thick summer air. "_You're_ leaving _me_ behind."

"It wouldn't be honorable," he argued.

It took a moment, and then her response was dangerously quiet, spoken through gritted teeth: "There is no honor in being dead."

Robin stepped closer to her, trying to forget about his missed shot. "I'm good, Marian. No one else can shoot like me. I can make a difference."

Her eyes flashed. "Yes, and I'm better with a sword than you are, but you don't see me running off to die in the desert."

"You're a girl."

"And you're an idiot," she snapped. "Tell me, Robin, what happens to Locksley in your absence? The villagers, the manor, the fields? You have no family left alive. Will you let your people starve? Let your family's house fall into disrepair?"

Robin brushed this off. "The king will appoint a caretaker."

"Fine," said Marian, turning away. "I hope he's handsome. Maybe I'll marry him after you're dead."

This was going even worse than he'd expected. "_Marian_—"

"And you can have this back," she said, her voice flat. She pulled the ring - his ring - from her finger and held it out to him in her palm.

He felt like someone had stabbed him. While she stared at him unrelenting, he came towards her. He reached out and closed her fingers over the ring, and his own hands over hers. "Marian, _please_-"

Robin knew it sounded like begging.

"You're leaving," she said, her voice perfectly even.

He knew this Marian - he _hated_ this Marian. The one who could turn off her emotions, who could look at him so dispassionately after everything they'd been through together. He'd never learned how to do that.

Which was why he sounded so desperate when he said, low and sorry: "Wait for me."

"You'll be gone for _years_," she said. "I won't even know if you're dead. Do you really expect me to spend the next - what - four years, five? - pining over you? This is a mad war, and you're mad to go."

Robin took one more step towards her, so they were toe to toe in the dirt outside of Knighton Hall. "Nothing has changed," he said. "I _love you_. I want to get married, just - it's going to take a little longer. I want to be with you. _Please_."

Her gaze drifted to the ground, and the ground was where she directed her next words. "You just want _glory_ more."

That stopped him. Probably because it was true, or close enough to true. "Marian," he said, but nothing else. He had nothing else to say.

"Don't."

He didn't.

"You do what you want, as always," she said, and he could hear the emotion creeping in around the edges, but her facade was so good. "Go off to war. Prove that you're a big man, if that's what you need to do. But _don't_ expect me to wait for you, and _don't_ expect me to mourn when Much comes back to tell us that you've—"

And that was where she finally broke. Her tirade got caught on a sob, and she brought her hand up to her mouth to smother the sound. Her blue eyes bright in the darkening evening.

It wrecked him. God, maybe she was right. Robin personally knew a half-dozen men who would kill to be betrothed to Marian of Knighton, and he was giving that up? For what?

But he knew. It _was_ glory, but not the way Marian meant it. It wasn't about him showing off with a bow, getting close to the king. It was about the glory of God; the glory of fighting for King Richard and England and Sherwood itself. His father had always said that war made men, and Robin was ready. He was a noble, and he'd trained his whole life for this.

Surely.

"I'm not going to die," he said quietly. Fighting the urge to reach out and hold her. He'd never been good at watching her cry.

She laughed, the sound bitter and thick with tears. "You're not special, Robin of Locksley. You don't walk on water. I know you think you're invincible but—"

"I'm _not_ going to die."

Something in his tone changed her mind, and Marian shifted in an instant. She brushed the tears from her face and nodded. Stoic once again. "And I'm not going to wait."

She couldn't be serious. Marian complained about _everyone_. For a while her father had encouraged suitors from around the shire, and Marian had laughed them all off. She'd declared them all useless, until finally her father gave up and admitted to himself that it was probably going to be Robin, after all.

Of course she'd wait.

Right?

It was late enough that almost everyone else was in for the night, and the heavy air and fireflies conspired to make Robin brave. He wouldn't ask her - he wouldn't _beg_ her; that's what it would be - but.

"Let's just say I come back alive," he said. "And you're still unmarried. Would you have me then?"

"I suppose we'll find out." Her voice was entirely passionless.

Well, that was a problem he knew how to fix.

Robin crossed the space between them - slow, cautious, the way he'd be with a deer in the forest. He didn't spook her. Not even when he reached out and pulled her toward him.

Not even when he kissed her.

He wanted to remember the way she tasted for the rest of his life - no matter how short it might be. Marian tasted like home. Long summers shooting apples out of trees in the orchard; winters curling up before the fire and wondering how long the harvest would last, how thin their soup would be in March. May, with flowers in her hair. Robin was no pagan, he would fight and die for the cross, but he worshipped her on those warm, sticky days of spring. When her hair tumbled down with ribbons all through it, and little beads of sweat gathered at her hairline as they danced.

Marian was all entwined there, in his history, and Robin knew he'd never be able to unravel her.

She was the better part of his heart, and she always would be. No matter what happened.

He thought he should tell her this - _knew_ he should - but something stopped him. Robin had never been good at sincerity. Jokes were easy. He'd been a clever boy and he'd grown into a clever man, but he had never learned to speak the truth. At least not to her.

So as his mouth moved over hers, his hand cupped the back of her head just a little more fiercely, wrapping the hair at the nape of her neck around his fingers. Like he could keep her there with him until he had to leave. Like he could say everything he needed to without ever saying a word.

And Marian pressed into him, just as urgent, her heartbeat just as fast, and maybe she'd forgive him after all, maybe—

And then she cried out, pulling sharply away. She looked lost for a moment, like she wasn't sure where she was, or what had happened.

He said her name.

He said her name and moved toward her once again, and Marian stepped away shaking her head.

The ring was still in her hand, wrapped tight in her clenched fist. She held it out before her, rolling it between her long fingers. Looking back up at him, back at the ring in her hand. Her mouth tightened. The flash in her eyes told Robin everything he needed to know.

In a burst of anger, Marian wrenched her arm back and threw the ring _hard_, so it skittered across the dirt to land at Robin's feet.

He watched her, jaw dropped, as she pulled herself back together. Composed her face, turned around. Walked away.

And he watched her go.

And in the morning he left, and for five long years he remembered Marian's rage, felt it like the sting after a slap. He remembered her threats and her tears, and how she didn't look back as she left him in the dust outside her house.

But mostly, Robin remembered that in the midst of all her anger, she had still kissed him back.

She'd still kissed him back.


End file.
